Speech proposing motion F43

by Councillor Colin Rosenstiel, Cambridge

Madam Chair, I come to the rostrum this afternoon to propose this
motion, being urged on not only by Tony Greaves but also by Paddy
Ashdown.

The movers are happy to accept the amendment. It widens the scope
in just the way we should be in the light of developments. We
oppose the removal of lines 10-13 - they are what this motion
is all about.

This motion is about getting a new voting system for this country.
It is about a system that is representative not just of parties
- they seem to get all the attention - it is also about representing
voters.

A new voting system should mean that what people vote for is what
people get.

We believe this can be done - we can have voter choice in elections
and STV is the best way to do it.

I would like at this point to nail a few myths about STV. People
say it is just a "Liberal Democrat" system. STV was
first used in 1819 - nearly 60 years before there was a Liberal
Party. It was introduced in Ireland by the British and is widely
used in the UK: Universities, Unions and Professional bodies are
examples.

There are first-time student voters surprised that multi-seat
public elections are not by STV. Preferential voting in
their student elections is often their only voting experience
before casting their first public vote.

In fact, millions of STV votes are cast in Great Britain every
year.

STV is a representative democracy system - parties are secondary.
Parties get power only if that's what voters want. Irish
voters are now very adept at crossing party lines and they have
proved that co-operative government is much better than one-party
government.

Parties are unregulated, have shown that they can't be trusted
and are at a low ebb in the public esteem. We, the Liberal Democrats,
can show people a different type of party, one that wants to put
the voters in charge.

What we are now regaled with is a bewildering range of different
party list systems. They weren't just worked out on the back of
a fag packet - they used the front and sides as well for this
ragbag! Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland Forum and Europe, all
different and untried systems.

The Additional Member System is a party list system. Don't let
anyone try to tell you otherwise. AMS provides top-up members
from party lists to correct the unproportional results of First
Past The Post. The constituency members simply provide a fig-leaf.
Constituencies would be totally different and much larger than
existing ones. Parliament would be effectively dominated by party
list members. Voters would have no say over who was elected from
these lists, to judge by the Scottish and Welsh examples.

If the Tory party were to put Neil Hamilton on their list, as
actually happened, there would be no possibility of a White
Knight riding to the rescue in the person of Martin Bell. Neil
Hamilton would be elected. There would be nothing the voters of
his region would be able to do about it, other than to desert
the entire Tory ticket in droves - a lovely thought but extremely
unlikely. And the White Knight would be lost in the party melee.

Party lists will direct candidates' efforts at jockeying for position
within their own parties. They should be addressing the
voters. It should be the voters' choice, not
cabals of party members manipulated by the likes of Peter Mandelson.

What do Labour fear in letting their voters, all the millions
of them, choose their elected representatives?

And don't let's kid ourselves that Liberal Democrats will be entirely
immune from the corrosive temptations of intra-party politics
either.

So, what should the party do now?

In lines 9-18 of the motion we set out some of the steps required
to persuade the commission to come to the most democratic
conclusion.

The public does not yet realise the risks of placing all power
over MP selection in the hands of party machines. We must go home
from this conference and help to build a grass-roots movement
(as described in section 4) demanding voters' right to choose
- not just which party, but which people, are elected.

We must succeed and bring about a true victory for the
people of the UK.